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Downloaded from Brill.Com09/30/2021 06:44:24PM Via Free Access Hans Gerald Hödl Reversed racism:fundamentalist genealogies in African-American religions1 Hans Gerald Hödl As one of the consequences of the Atlantic slave trade,distinct religionsevolved among the descendants of the Africans brought to the Americas. As arule,Afro-Americans in Latin America developedtheir own religions (like SanteríainCuba or CandomblØ in Brazil),based on West or Central African cultural matrices using elements taken from other traditions the slaves were exposed to,like Christianity and Spiritism. In contrast to Latin America, in North America under colonial rule and in ante-bellum USA there emerged, for the main part, evangelicalforms of Christianity amongthe African Americans.Inthe class of those new religiousgroups outside mainstream Christianity that came into being amidst AfricanAmericans at the end of the 19th and throughout the 20th century,wefind so called “messianic-nationalist sects” (Baer /Singer) that have in common acriticism of American society,acentral myth about aglorious pastofthe “black race”,and the strive to re-establish black supremacy in agolden futureofthe “black race”. Themythicalbackground concerning genealogies of races these religions share can be described as an inversion of white dualistic racist theories within the framework of Abrahamic religions:Dark skinned Africansare either regarded as the true Hebrewsorasthe true Muslims,“whites” as members of an inferior race.Some of these groups are openly separatist, whilst others have amore integrationiststance.This paper reads the development of some of these groups on the backgroundofasketch of African-American religioushistory and interprets it as amore or less fundamentalist reactiontoasituation of incongruence. Hans Gerald Hödl is aProfessor at the Department of the StudyofReligions at Vienna University.His research and teachingactivities focus on Theory of Ritual, West African, Afro American and African AmericanReligions, Mormonism and Critique of Religion. 1Iuse the term “African-American” with reference to US citizens of African des- cent and the broaderterm “Afro-American” for inhabitants of the Americas stemming from Africa. 131 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:44:24PM via free access Hans Gerald Hödl 1. Got my Mojo Working:2 African Elements in Afro-American Religions Most Afro-Americansare the offspring of slavesthat have been broughttothe Americas during the transatlantic slave trade from the 16th to the 19th century c.e. Africans from different regions, mostly from West Africa and West Central Af- rica, have been subject to the so called triangular trade.3 They have also brought their religious traditions with them.But there is aremarkable difference between the way thesetraditions have influenced the development of Afro-American religions in the countries of former Europeancolonieswith catholic background and in those under predominant protestant rule.Inthe former countries, as arule, more or less definedAfro-American religious bodies came into being, in which some features of Iberian Folk-Catholicism and 19th centurysSpiritism4 were put into the framework of (mostly:West, but also Central [Kongo]) African cultural heritage,5 so that one can clearly establish arelationship of these religions with 2“Got my MojoWorking” is ablues song composed by Preston Foster (a white US American actor) made famous by Muddy Waters (a black musician). “Mojo” is aloving charm of prominence in Louisiana conjure and “Hoodoo”. According to Long 2001, p. 82, “RobertFarris Thompson traces mojo to the wordmooyo,bywhich the Kongo people mean the indwellingspirit of acharm”.Alas,Icould not find that passageon pp.105 and 117 of Thompsonsbook “Flash of the Spirit”, as cited by Long in note 20 on p. 280 of her work (although Ifoundareference to “toby” on p. 105, according to Long s quotation). Neither “mo(o)yo” nor “mojo” are listed in the index of Thompsonsbook (“toby”islisted, under the category “charms”, p. 305). 3The Trans-Atlantic slavetrade originated at the beginning of the 16th century and increased steadily until the 18th century,during whichanestimated total of 6,494,600 Africans have been sold into slavery in the Atlantictrade (for numbers,see Lovejoy 2013, pp.46–50). Although slave trade began to be prohibitedbyEuropean states and the USA since the beginning of the 19th century (Lovejoy2013, p. 135), there has been trade in slaves from Africatothe Americas until 1866 (with atotal number of 3,873,600 African slaves exported from 1801 to 1866;see Lovejoy 2013, p. 141), named “the largest human migration to date” by Lovejoy 2013, p. 135. TheTrans-Atlantic slave trade outnumbered the Muslim slavetrade across theSahara, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean during that time (approx. 3,000,000 Africansfrom 1500–1800;see Lovejoy 2013, p. 68).For ashort overview on the Atlantic slave trade see Collins/Burns 2014, pp.212–226. 4Onthese transformations in Cuban Santeríasee Hödl 2010. 5The Yorbµ kingdom of Oyo,which gained wealth through its involvement in the ˙ ˙ slave trade (like the neighbouring West African kingdom of Dahomey) seems to have started taking thesupplyofslaves from within at the beginning of the 19th century,at which time its power also began to weaken until its fall in the era of approx.1823–1836 (Law 1991, pp.296–298;307–308). This might have had an effectonthe dominance of Yorbµ traditions among Afro-American religions in LatinAmerica. According to Lovejoy,the slavesexported from the Bight of Benin during that time “were heavily 132 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:44:24PM via free access Reversed racism:fundamentalist genealogies in African-American religions (West and Central) African religious traditions.6 Furthermore,there is an ex- change going on between somemembers of thosereligions and contemporary West African cults7 sharing those origins,and these Afro-Americantraditions are now open for members of non-African descent. Those Afro-Americansand Af- rican-Americans who embracethesereligions,such as Santeríaand CandomblØ, look to the African continent, mostly to West African peoples like the Yorbµ,the Ewe and the FonortoKiKongo-speaking peoples8 as their progenitors.9 Fur- thermore,inthe course of the 20th and 21st centuries,some of these religions have developed to players among religions of the world that are attractive for white Latin- and US-Americans as well as for Europeans. In this vein, they have also been interpreted as acontribution that Africa has made to the landscape of the worldsreligionstoday.10 Thesole distinct Afro-Americanreligious tradition that cameinto being in North America seemstohave been thepractice of “Voodoo” or “Hoodoo” in Louisiana.11 Zora Hurston held that this practice was brought there by slaves who Yoruba in origin”(2013, p. 142);nevertheless,the total number of slaves taken from West CentralAfricabetween 1801 and 1866 was nearly 5times the number of those taken from theBightofBenin (Lovejoy 2013, p. 141). 6Literature on that topic is abundant;asthis article focusses on North America,it cannot be discussed here in any detail. Aprecise description of the developmentofCuban Santeríacan be found in Brown 2003. It captures both transmissionofAfrican Elements and construction of an African past (see especially chapters 2&3,pp. 62–162);for Yorbµ elements in BrazilianCandomblØ,see,e.g., Smith Omari-Tunkara2005. Although many scholars stress the Yorbµ elementsinthese traditions,there are also elements from other traditions to be found, e. g.,Fon, Ewe and Kongo. 7Iusethe term “cult”here in aneutralway referring to organized groups of wor- shippers of different deities or of divination practices (likein“cultic milieu”), not as a derogatory term (like in “anti-cult-movement”). 8For theorigins of slaves in the Trans-Atlantic trade –the greater part of which was taken from West CentralAfrica as asingle supplierand West Africa from Senegambia to the Bight of Biafra –see Lovejoy 2013, pp.45–61. 9This way,the process of cultural and religioustransformation that hadcharac- terized the development of the religious traditions in question has led to new forms of cultural exchange:citizens of “New World” countriestravel to West Africa to be initiated into one of the traditional or neo-traditional cults there.Anexample would be Oba Efuntola Oseijeman Adelabu Adefunmi (1928–2005), born Walter Eugene King, the first African-American to be initiated into Santería(in 1959). He founded Oyotunji African Village in Sheldon, South Carolina, in 1970 and travelled to Nigeria in 1972 wherehewas initiated into the Ifµ divination system (see Clarke 2009;onAdefunmi, ibid., p. 293). 10 Forthe tradition of Santeríainthe USA see,f.e., De la Torre 2004. Karade 1994 interprets Yorbµ traditions as one of the great religious traditions of theworld, and, e. g., parallels certain Orisha with the 7chakras of the Yogic tradition (ibid.,pp. 38–46). 11 There is much debate about the terminology.“Voodoo” stems from the Fonword 133 Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY-NC-ND Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 06:44:24PM via free access Hans Gerald Hödl had come with their mastersfrom Haiti afterthe Haitian revolution at the be- ginningofthe 19th century,12 whilst Carolyn Long thinks that during the French rule in LouisianaAfrican slaves –asinother Catholic colonies–might have stuck to their African religious rites in the free time granted them by the “code noir”13 and remarks that as an effect of the influx of immigrants
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